[Chapter 71. The Cold Truth]
The massive, notched blade of the Zweih?nder descended with a whistling arc, slamming into the shoulder of a mutated wild boar. The force was absolute, the heavy steel cleaving the beast practically in two and sending a spray of dark, viscous blood across the forest floor. The creature’s carcass twitched once before falling still in the dirt.
"What are you doing on the ground!? Did you hope it would walk off if you cowered before it on the floor!?" Iris’s voice sliced through the air, sharper than her blade. She stood over the kill, her gaze fixed on Lana, who was currently collapsed in the mud, her breath coming in ragged, terrified hitches.
"I… I just… I don't know what to do," Lana stammered, her voice breaking between desperate, hiccuping sobs. Her hands were white-knuckled as she gripped the edges of her heavy shield, which now lay uselessly beside her in the muck.
"GET UP!" Iris commanded, the tip of her massive blade shifting to point directly at Lana’s throat. The silver steel gleamed with a cold, unforgiving light. "Your shield is not a piece of decoration. It is your tool, your lifeline, and your only chance not to become a red smear on the forest floor."
Iris paused, her eyes narrowing as she scrutinized the younger woman. The silence of the forest seemed to amplify the sound of Lana’s weeping. "Stand up now and face your opponent. The next one will not wait for you to find your courage."
Iris slowly turned her head to look at the three other women who stood a few meters away. They remained frozen, huddled together as they watched the brutal display. "Are you waiting for a formal invitation? This is not a dinner party. You will fight, or you will be consumed." Her silver eyes, devoid of any warmth, gazed over each one of them, weighing their worth in a world that had suddenly lost its mercy.
She turned her attention back to Lana, who was finally beginning to push herself up, her limbs trembling with physical and emotional exhaustion. "You are the shield," Iris stated, her tone flat and factual. "You will be the first line, and you will hold it. If you buckle, the line breaks. If the line breaks, you all will die."
The heavy blade moved to the side in a smooth, controlled motion, Iris pointing it toward Vanessa. "You are the mage. Your role is not to hesitate. You will strike from afar with everything you have. Do not give them a single chance to close the distance and strike you."
The blade moved again, the steel catching the dim light filtering through the canopy. "You are the healer. You will be the one who keep them up when they should have fallen. Learn your limits. And more importantly, learn theirs. If you miscalculate their endurance, they die, and you follow shortly after."
The last one to be pointed at was Sarah, who stood slightly apart from the others, her eyes darting toward the shadows. "And you… you will be the one who strikes from the dark. You will be the ghost in the trees. You will kill them before they even see you coming, or you will be useless to this group."
Iris lowered the heavy sword, its tip resting lightly on the blood-stained grass. She looked at all four of them, her expression unreadable.
Vanessa stared back at Iris, her green eyes burning with a defiant, localized fire. Her breathing was shallow, and her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides. "You're just a monster, enjoying this!" she spat, her voice trembling with a mixture of rage and sheer terror. "We didn't ask for this! Any of this! We were just living our lives, and now you’re treating us like animals!"
Iris’s eyes bore into Vanessa, but her tone remained chillingly unchanged. "Are you so naive as to believe that anyone on this planet asked for this? By now, millions will already be dead or dying in the streets. I do not enjoy the process of torturing the weak. I am preventing your inevitable death. And in doing so, I am making myself a viable resource for Searanox. You can choose to be the same—a resource, a survivor—or you can be the red smear you are currently looking at," Iris answered. Her expression remained a mask of stony indifference as she pointed the flat of her blade toward the mangled boar carcass lying in the dirt next to her.
Vanessa flinched as if she had been physically struck by the words, but the anger in her eyes did not waver. She looked as though she wanted to scream, to lash out at the unfairness of it all.
Carmen stepped forward, placing a steady, calming hand on Vanessa’s arm to keep her from doing something suicidal. "She's right," Carmen said, her voice low and heavy with a newfound pragmatism. "This isn't about what is fair or what we want. This is about survival. We need to learn how to use what we’ve been given, and this is the only way."
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Sarah let out a bitter, jagged laugh—a harsh, grating sound that shattered the tense silence of the clearing. "Learn what? How to get our asses kicked by a wolf in a bad mood? Look at us. We’re outclassed."
Iris did not offer a verbal rebuttal. Instead, she raised her Zweih?nder and, with a sudden, effortless flick of her wrist, sent the massive weapon spinning into the air. The heavy blade rotated end-over-end before embedding itself deep into the trunk of a nearby tree with a solid, echoing thud.
"These beasts are the lowest tier you can face, for now… but the world is changing rapidly. After the second stage of the integration, this world will be populated with beasts that are significantly stronger than the ones you find inside the dungeons. By then, everyone who is weak, slow, or unprotected will simply perish. I saw your world for a brief moment before the transition. It was soft. You could walk outside your dwellings without the constant fear of death. That reality has changed. Your technology, your weapons of war, and even your great cities are no more. They are relics of a bygone era."
Her silver eyes scanned each of them, forcing them to meet her gaze. "Just ask yourselves one simple, honest question: will you survive outside the tower, on your own, when the sun goes down tonight? Will you have enough food for the following day?"
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the clearing, broken only by the sound of Lana's ragged, hitching sobs. The question hung in the humid air, stark and undeniable. Each woman was lost in her own terrifying internal landscape.
Vanessa's defiant stance finally broke. Her shoulders slumped forward as she stared first at the dead boar, then down at her own trembling, pale hands. The crushing weight of Iris's words was beginning to sink in. She had always fought for control in her life, striving for a place at the top of the social and professional ladder. Now, she realized with a jolt of horror that she was at the very bottom of a new food chain, completely powerless against the shifting world.
Carmen understood the cold logic being presented—the sheer, brutal economy of their current situation. In this new world, weakness was not a flaw; it was a death sentence. This training wasn't a test of their character; it was a culling of their old selves.
Sarah looked at the mangled carcass, then down at the small, seemingly useless dagger gripped in her hand. A bitter, metallic taste filled her mouth. Her charm, her looks, her entire worldview—everything she had used to navigate her previous life—had been rendered entirely meaningless in the span of three days. She realized she was nothing more than a body waiting to be broken by something larger and hungrier than herself.
Lana finally pushed herself up from the damp ground, her face streaked with a mixture of tears, sweat, and dark dirt. She looked at the heavy shield in her hands. For the first time, she stopped viewing it as a cumbersome burden and started seeing it as a potential lifeline. The fear was still there—a cold, heavy knot in the pit of her stomach—but beneath it, a tiny, flickering spark of defiance was born. She wiped her face with her sleeve and stood her ground.
Iris watched them, her expression remaining unreadable, though she noted the subtle shift in their eyes. She saw the dawning realization of their new, grim reality. "Good," she said, her voice flat and devoid of any comforting emotion.
"You should already know how your spells work, how they are activated by your intent. Now you must learn how to use them, and more importantly, when to use them. Efficiency is the difference between life and death." She walked over to her sword, pulling the heavy steel free from the tree trunk with a single, effortless motion that spoke of her immense strength.
"The only way to truly learn that is through consistent practice. And pain." Her gaze swept over the four women once more, her silver eyes cold and hard like polished coins. "This is your new reality. Adapt or die."
Just as she finished her sentence, the bushes at the edge of the clearing parted. A deer stepped into their line of sight, but this was no ordinary creature of the forest. Its massive, branching antlers glowed with a faint, pulsing blue light, and its eyes burned with a disturbing, predatory intelligence. Its body was lean and muscular, its fur shimmering with a subtle, ethereal glow that seemed to warp the air around it. It was a mana-infused creature—a being of both natural power and supernatural danger.
The deer did not hesitate; it charged. Its movements were impossibly fast, its hooves striking the ground with unnatural force.
"Shield!" Iris barked.
Lana reacted instinctively, raising her shield and bracing her shoulder against the cold metal. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the handle. A translucent, shimmering barrier of blue energy flickered into existence around the shield’s perimeter, effectively doubling its normal size. The deer slammed into the barrier with a sickening thud. Lana flinched, her teeth rattling from the impact, but she remained on her feet, the energy barrier holding firm against the beast’s charge.
Sarah, seeing her opening, moved with a sudden burst of speed. She appeared next to the deer’s flank, her form momentarily blurring in and out of existence. She plunged her blade deep into the creature's side. The beast let out a high-pitched, ethereal shriek and twisted around, its glowing antlers pulsing brighter as it turned to face her, its eyes burning with a sudden, localized rage.
Vanessa, her face now a mask of focused fury, raised her hand to unleash a bolt of raw arcane energy. The projectile flew through the air in a brilliant streak of violet light, crackling with power. However, her aim was off, her nerves still frayed by the chaos. The bolt hissed through the air and struck the damp ground just a step away from Sarah and Lana. The resulting explosion of kinetic force sent both of them stumbling backward, nearly knocking them to the ground.
"I told you to be careful!" Iris's voice rang out—a cold, sharp rebuke that cut through the sound of the crackling mana. "Your allies are not your targets!"
